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The Impossible Planet (TV story)
The Impossible Planet 'is the eighth episode of the second series of ''Doctor Who. It was written by Matt Jones, directed by James Strong and featured David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor and Billie Piper as Rose Tyler. Overview To be added Synopsis The Doctor and Rose arrive on a planet that should not be there - it's on the edge of a black hole. The answer seems to lie in a counterbalancing gravitational force emitted by the planet. The human scientists inhabiting a are there to study the phenomenon and are assisted by a subservient race of beings, known as the Ood. The surface of the planet is unstable and the TARDIS vanishes into a pit. It soon becomes clear that there is a creature of some sort living in the pit and that the Ood are not the benevolent creatures they at first appear to be. Plot The TARDIS makes an uneasy landing in a confined space; as they step out, the Doctor muses that it didn't seem to want to land and Rose suggests that they could just go someplace else, but they both just laugh this off. Stepping out of the storage unit and looking around, the Doctor and Rose find themselves on a sanctuary base designed for deep space exploration. Arriving in what appeared to be staff quarters, they find the words 'Welcome to Hell' sprayed on the wall above an array of symbols that the TARDIS won't translate. Concerned about travelling beyond what the TARDIS can translate, the Doctor decides that they should go, but they are met by a mass of squid-like aliens insisting that they must feed. While the Doctor and Rose defend themselves on their approach, one of them hits it's translation sphere and completes the sentence that they are offering to feed them. Three humans, Mr. Jefferson and two others arrive in the section and are stunned to discover the travellers. Jefferson receives from his captain to return to the control room. Taking them back to the others as the base starts to shake, the Doctor and Rose meet the crew as an earthquake hits the base and everybody is thrown around as the captain notifies that the base has lost storage 5 through 8. The crew make their introductions, science officer Ida Scott, captain Zachary Cross Flane, ethics committee representative Danny Bartock, head of security John Jefferson, archaeologist Toby Zedd and trainee maintenance officer Scooti Manista. To show them where they are, Ida opens the ceiling hatch, revealing that they are on a planet known as Krop-Tor in orbit around a black hole right above them. The Doctor and Rose look up at the black hole in shock with Ida explaining that while entire star systems are pulled inside above them, they are on a planet sat right on it's outskirts, despite the Doctor's insistence that it's impossible. Elsewhere, Toby goes to check on the rocket when he hears an ominous voice calling his name; thinking it to be a joke, he dismisses it. Zach and Ida show the Doctor the scans of the black hole and the anomalistic gravity funnel that enabled them to land there in the first place. While he calculates the power, Rose encounters the alien servants again, when Danny introduces them as the Ood, explaining them to be a completely subservient race. The Doctor deduces the energy needed to retain the planet's orbit and gravity funnel and deems it impossible but Ida pulls up the planet's schematic, displaying the source of the power holding the planet in orbit and explains their drilling operation to try and discover it. Toby voices his belief that a civilisation, those responsible for the untranslatable scripture, buried something down there. Despite his reticence, the Doctor heartily commends the crew for flying headfirst into an operation laden with impossible fact and inconceivable danger out of curiosity. Explaining their own arrival, the Doctor remembers landing the TARDIS in storage 6, then realises with horror that Zach had deflected the earthquake through storage 5 to 8. He races back to where they'd landed with Rose in tow, highly concerned and looks through the port of the decommissioned door to discover that the TARDIS was lost in the earthquake, the section of ground having collapsed to the center of the planet. Returning to the control room, the Doctor pleads with Zach to help him recover it with the drill, but Zach insists that they can't divert the drill leaving him and Rose trapped and forlorn. Meanwhile, the crew continues the drilling operation; Ida fixes connections outside, Danny takes register of the Ood and Toby continues to try and decipher the scripture. He suddenly hears the voice again but the source of it doesn't show itself again. In section 3, Rose gets some "food" from the Ood when the one serving her makes an ominous comment about 'the Beast and the Pit' before it continues as normal. In the control room, a holographic face of a monster appears on the monitor and the computer tells Danny that 'He is awake'. Toby keeps working and hears the voice again; it warns him not to turn around and look at it or he will die. It continues to coax him when he turns to find nothing there. However, when he looks at the artifacts, the scripture on it is gone and has transferred itself to the palms of his hands and his face while his irises turn bright red and he falls unconscious. As the remainder of the crew watch the collapse of the Scarlett System as it falls into the black hole before returning to work, the Doctor and Rose keep watching above. Rose checks her superphone and discovers that for once she hasn't any signal; she tries to comfort the Doctor that if they survive the crew will take them away where they can live their lives. Suddenly, Rose's phone rings and it declares 'He is awake' as she throws it, and Toby suddenly wakes as if he'd heard it. The Doctor and Rose find Danny in Ood Habitation and ask if they communicate telepathically when Rose mentions what the Ood had said to here before. Suddenly, the Ood's telepathic field suddenly jumps up from Basic 5 to Basic 30 and the Ood stand and turn to face them, to Danny's shock. When Rose utters what her phone said, 'He is awake', the Ood unanimously utter 'And you will worship him' in response. The Doctor demands to know what's taking control of them. Scooti looks for Toby in his lab but finds him gone and hears door 41 open and close; when the computer tells her that someone has gone onto the surface without a spacesuit, the observation hatch and she spots Toby, scripture all over his face grinning back at her from the vacuum outside. Unable to believe what she's seeing, Toby gets angry and starts to break the glass; Scotti tries desperately to get back through door 40 to safety but the door doesn't open and she is sucked out into the vacuum. The breach causes the entire base to shake and Zach orders everybody to evacuate sections 11 to 13, which collapses in the earthquake. Everybody convenes in Habitation 3 looking for Scooti when the Doctor mournfully spots her floating away through space towards the black hole and draws everybody's attention to her. Jefferson reports her death to Zach and incants for her while Ida respectfully closes the ceiling hatch as her body drifts towards the black hole. Suddenly, the drill stops, meaning that they've made it to point zero of the planet. The crew ready to descend; Ida organises the expedition ready to go down herself while the Doctor volunteers to go with her, despite Zach's reluctance. Stepping into the capsule, the Doctor and Ida are lowered down the shaft towards the center of the planet while Zach monitors them from the control room and Rose keeps contact. In Ood habitation, all the Ood suddenly rise without prompt as the capsule reaches point zero and the Doctor and Ida step out into a darkened chasm that Ida lights with a gravity globe to reveal the ruins of an ancient civilisation. They head through the giant arches of the ancient temple to look for the energy source. On the base, Danny tells Zach that the Ood's telepathic field has clocked Basic 100, meaning they should be suffering brain death; Zach orders Danny and Jefferson to guard the Ood. The Doctor and Ida stumble across a giant hatch covered in the indecipherable scripture; when Zach and Rose ask if Toby made any headway with translating it, he stands to reveal the scripture and red irises again and starts speaking with the deep ominous voice he'd heard, as if he was possessed. The communications across the base suddenly go out as Toby passes the possession over to all the Ood, causing all their eyes to go red. As Toby collapses, the Ood kills one of the soldiers on the base as they start advancing. The Doctor heads back to the capsule, the hatch starts to open and heads back to witness it completely unseal with Ida and Zach discovers that the gravity funnel is starting to collapse and that the planet will soon fall into the black hole. With Rose and Jefferson trapped with the possessed Ood, the Doctor and Ida look into the black chasm as a monstrous voice declares "The pit is open and I am free"... Cast * The Doctor - David Tennant * Rose Tyler - Billie Piper * Mr. Jefferson - Danny Webb * Zachary Cross Flane - Shaun Parkes * Ida Scott - Claire Rushbrook * Toby Zed - Will Thorp * Danny Bartock - Ronny Jhutti * Scooti Manista - MyAnna Buring * The Ood - Paul Kasey * The Voice of the Beast - Gabriel Woolf * The Voice of the Ood - Silas Carson Crew To be added References To be added Story Notes To be added Continuity To be added Home video and audio releases To be added External Links * Official ''The Impossible Planet'' page on '''Doctor Who Website